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Sinead O'Connor has revealed she's changed her name after turning her back on Catholicism and converting to Islam.The Irish singer, who was once ordained a priest by the Irish Orthodox and Apostolic Church, made the announcement on Twitter telling fans she was proud to have become a muslim. Sinead, 51, will now be known as Shuhada' Davitt - with shuhada meaning 'martyrs' or 'witnesses' in Arabic.In a post to fans she wrote: "This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey. All scripture study leads to...

Large-scale repatriations by US multinationals following tax reforms under President Donald Trump meant total foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Republic fell sharply in the first six months of 2018. New figures show that FDI in Ireland went into reverse in the first half of the year as many US companies moved to repatriate accumulated foreign earnings from their affiliates abroad. According to statistics from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), total FDI inflows to the State declined by $81 billion (€71 billion). With $2 billion of that accounted for by new investments, the figure for capital...

Today’s budget has outlined that the initial roll out cost of abortion services in Ireland will be €12 million. Last week, Health Minister Simon Harris said the cost of the termination of pregnancy services would be “significant”. At the time, he said the final figure “won’t be crystallized for another few months”. The €12 million figure set out in today’s Budget document is only for the actual service. The ancillary recommendations such as contraception measures will be dealt with as part of the HSE service plan. Harris has outlined that contractual obligations must also be sorted out with GPs and...

LEICESTER, United Kingdom - Catholic schools in the Republic of Ireland can no longer give preference to Catholic students. Richard Bruton, the Irish Minister for Education and Skills, made the announcement Oct. 3 on Twitter. Unlike in the United States, the government funds religious schools in Ireland, and about 96 percent of elementary schools in the country are under the patronage of a religious group, and approximately 90 percent of these schools are run by the Catholic Church. In some areas of the country - mostly in and around the capital Dublin - there are more students seeking places in...

It looked like closing time at the county fair or the week before Christmas at the mall: cars just sitting there, bumper to bumper, waiting their turn to inch along. Dozens of vehicles lined up and down the aisles of the parking lot, honking as if every single driver in front of them was staring at their cellphone while stopped at a green light. It sounded like the traffic jam of the century. But, in fact, it was the Krispy Kreme drive-through at 1:30 a.m. in Dublin — the first to open in the country. The Dublin location opened Sept....

Former seminary priest speaks out on homosexual subculture and exposes the Irish McCarrickFollowing the dark revelations of the McCarrick scandal, former seminary formator, Father David Marsden, decided it was time to go public on the real reason he resigned from Maynooth and why he remains deeply concerned about the presence of a powerful gay subculture in the national seminary.Referendum a forbidden topic The year is 2015 and debate in Ireland is dominated by the State’s plan to change the constitution to allow pairs of the same sex to “marry” – with such a blatant assault on God’s plan for marriage...

Ireland may recognize a Palestinian state if peace talks with Israel aimed at producing a two-state solution in the region continue to stagnate, the country’s Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, said. Coveney’s comments came during a joint press conference on the weekend with the Palestinian Authority (PA) “foreign minister”, Riyad Al-Maliki, reported The Irish Times. Coveney said Ireland has already committed to recognizing a Palestinian state as part of a peace process. However, if negotiations between the side continue to prove fruitless “we may have to forget the second part of that,” he added. He speculated that other European countries would...

With rising unilateralism challenging its very existence, the United Nations convenes its annual meeting of world leaders Monday and will try once more to tackle problems together as a community of nations, addressing threats ranging from Mideast conflicts to the effects of global warming — and also encouraging the glimmer of hope over the nuclear standoff in North Korea. This year, 133 world leaders have signed up to attend the General Assembly session, a significant increase from last year’s 114. Secretary-General António Guterres called the expected large turnout “eloquent proof of the confidence of the international community in the United...

Leo Varadkar is set to travel to New York today ahead of the United Nations Nelson Mandela Peace Summit. The Taoiseach will visit the UN headquarters in New York tomorrow to attend the summit, which is being held in honor of the centenary of Mandela’s birth. […] The Taoiseach will address the plenary and will also hold a number of bilateral meetings with heads of state during which he will raise Ireland’s campaign for an elected seat at the UN Security Council for the 2021-2022 term. …

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met President Michael D. Higgins, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, and Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney today. Coveney had invited Abbas to come to Ireland at their meeting in Ramallah in January. To coincide with the visit, the Tánaiste announced additional funding of €1 million to the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). “Ireland is a longstanding supporter of UNRWA’s vital work in delivering healthcare, education and food to 5.3 million Palestine refugees. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East region has meant an increased demand for UNRWA’s services but funding has not kept pace...

Be sustained in ME my children for truly as I AM alive in you, eternally My living fire of Virtue is always ready to rise up and meet your Declaration of being made whole,blessed and prosperous. "Take on My Graciousness" ( (( Just Believe ! )) ) Malachi 4:1-3 The Great Day of the LORD 1“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Ireland next weekend accompanied by a high-level delegation, it has been announced. The stopover will come on President Abbas’s journey to the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York. President Abbas will pay a courtesy call on President Higgins before holding a formal meeting and working dinner with the Tánaiste Simon Coveney at Farmleigh. Among the topics expected to be discussed are the humanitarian and security situation in Gaza and the West Bank, the funding crisis for UNRWA, and the future of the Middle East Peace Process.

The State could face infringement proceedings by the EU or a third party if a Bill that would ban imports from Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories is passed, the European Commission has warned. A Government official privately sought the advice of the Commission’s trade directorate last week on the proposed legislation, which is sponsored by Independent Senator Frances Black and passed its first vote in the Seanad in July with the support of Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, Labour and some independents. Fine Gael opposes the passage of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 on the basis...

One of the most dramatic pieces of evidence for a pre-Columbian crossing of the Atlantic is to be found in a single Latin marginalia, that is some words scribbled into the margin of a book. The sentence in question appears in a copy of the Historia rerum ubique gestarum by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini which was published in Venice in 1477. In that work Piccolomini discusses the arrival of Indians in Europe blown from across the Atlantic at a date when America was unknown to Europeans (another post another day). Next to this passage a reader has written in Latin the...

Former US president Bill Clinton says he is concerned about the impact Brexit will have on the Belfast Agreement. Speaking on the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, he said he was “most worried about the Good Friday Agreement, because I care so much about Ireland.” As president, Mr. Clinton played a key role in negotiating the peace process in 1998 which helped to end 30 years of violence in the North. […] “Even though Northern Ireland’s kept the peace, and there’s still cranes in Belfast where work is going in and the Irish economy is back to where it was...

A new political party, Irexit Freedom to Prosper, campaigning for Ireland to leave the EU will field candidates in next year’s European elections, its founder Herman Kelly has said. Speaking at the founding AGM of the party at a hotel in Dublin on Saturday, he said: “Today is about fulfilling the legal requirements to register, to sign up 300 people, and to have an AGM to elect national officers. We will be running candidates in the European elections.” The elections are due to take place alongside local elections, in May 2019. Before the conference got under way, Mr. Kelly said,...

In the shifting narratives of the Trump-Russia probe, a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud has remained a linchpin regarding claims of collusion. He is the professor who allegedly told Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that the Russians had emails related to the Clinton campaign. The FBI says it opened its investigation in late July 2016 after Papadopoulos relayed that information to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, and the Australians tipped off U.S. authorities. While some news accounts describe Mifsud as an accomplice to Russian clandestine operations or a “cut-out” (intermediary), others contend he is a full-fledged Russian spy. In an official...

Former taoiseach John Bruton has said doctors opposed to abortion should not be forced to refer women seeking terminations to other physicians. Mr. Bruton, in a speech to the Pro Life Education dinner in the Clayton Hotel, Dublin, on Saturday night, said he feared anti-abortion doctors would be “targeted” by those who wanted to “catch them out”. The Bill proposed by Minister for Health Simon Harris to introduce and regulate abortions requires a doctor who has a conscientious objection to carrying out the procedure to “make arrangements to transfer the care” of the woman to another doctor. “This is aiding...

An Irish woman has withdrawn the “pussy hat” knitting pattern which she had posted online as a service to fellow female protesters preparing for President Trump’s visit to Ireland in November: woke activists had pointed out to her that some women have penises, not vaginas. I won't be making pussy hats. I'm deleting the pattern I posted. I am really sorry for upsetting people, I've read, listened and learned and while it was not intentional it was thoughtless. I will make some hats with yellow roses instead. — Katherine Nolan (@DoChara) September 2, 2018 Katherine’s noble, thoughtful, caring decision has...

The Irish government must treat the U.S. president’s office with the respect it deserves when Donald Trump visits in November despite disagreeing with many of his policies, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said ahead of planned protests. SNIP “I know a lot of people dislike him, a lot of people object to him, a lot of people disagree with a lot of his policies, just as I do in fact,” Varadkar said in an interview with national broadcaster RTE late on Sunday. “But he is the president of America and the relationship between Ireland and the United States is much more...